Cedar oil
Cedar oil, also known as cedarwood oil, is an essential oil derived from various types of conifers, most in the pine or cypress botanical families. It is produced from the foliage, and sometimes the wood, roots, and stumps left after logging of trees for timber. It has many uses in art, industry, and perfumery, and while the characteristics of oils derived from various species may vary, all have some degree of pesticidal effects.
Uses
Cedarwood oils each have characteristic woody odours which may change somewhat in the course of drying out. The crude oils are often yellowish or even darker in color and some, such as Texas cedarwood oil, are quite viscous and deposit crystals on standing. They find use in a range of fragrance applications such as soap perfumes, household sprays, floor polishes and insecticides. Small quantities are used in microscope work as a clearing oil.Today, cedarwood oil is often used for its aromatic properties, especially in aromatherapy; it can also be used to renew the smell of natural cedar furniture. Cedarwood oil is used as an insect repellent, both directly applied to the skin and as an additive to sprays, candles and other products.
In India, oil from the deodar cedar has been shown to possess insecticidal and antifungal properties and to have some potential for control of fungal deterioration of spices during storage. It is still sometimes also used to clarify emeralds.
History
Cedar of Lebanon
The cedarwood oil of the ancients, in particular the Sumerians and Egyptians, was derived from the Cedar of Lebanon, a true cedar native to the northern and western mountains of the Middle East. The once-mighty Cedar of Lebanon forests of antiquity have been almost entirely eradicated, and today no commercial oil extraction is based on this species.Sumer
Cedarwood oil was used as the base for paints by the ancient Sumerians. They would grind cobalt compounds in a mortar to produce a blue pigment. They could obtain green from copper, yellow from lead antimonate, black from charcoal, and white from gypsum.Ancient Egypt
One of three methods of ancient Egyptian embalming practices employs the use of cedarwood oil. This was a less costly method than the best known of the ancient Egyptian practices of removing internal organs for separate preservation in canopic jars. The practice...called for the injection of cedar oil into body cavities without evisceration. The body was laid in natrum or natron—a fixed alkali—for the prescribed period, after which the cedarwood oil, which had dissolved the soft organs, was released; and the body, its flesh dissolved by the natron, was reduced to preserved skin and bones.